Complex Beauty

Massimo Franceschet
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Udine
Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy

Complex systems and their underlying convoluted networks are ubiqui-

tous; all we need is an eye for them. They pose problems of organized
complexity that cannot be approached with a reductionist method.
Complexity science and its emergent sister network science both come
to grips with the inherent complexity of complex systems with a
holistic strategy. The relevance of complexity, however, transcends the
sciences. Complex systems and networks are the focal point of a philo-
sophical, cultural, and artistic turn of our tightly interrelated and inter-
dependent postmodern society. I argue that complex systems can be
beautiful and can be the object of artificationthe neologism refers to
processes in which something that is not regarded as art in the tradi-
tional sense of the word is changed into art. Complex systems and
networks are powerful sources of inspiration for the artful data visual-
izer and for the generative designer, as well as for the traditional artist.

1. The Ubiquity of Complex Systems

In 1948 American scientist Warren Weaver wrote a very discerning ar-

ticle entitled Science and Complexity [1], anticipating the advent of
a new science of networks devoted to the investigations of complex
systems. Weaver spoke of problems of organized complexity. Such
problems involve dealing simultaneously with a sizable number of
factors which are interrelated into an organic whole. According to
Weaver, the solution of such problems requires science to make a
great advance, exploiting a mixed-team (interdisciplinary) approach:
It was found, in spite of the modern tendencies toward intense scien-
tic specialization, that members of such diverse groups could work to
gether and could form a unit which was much greater than the mere
sum of its parts. It was shown that these groups could tackle certain
problems of organized complexity, and get useful answers.
A comprehensive description of the characteristics of complex sys-
tems is given by philosopher and complexity researcher Paul Cilliers
in a book that draws a fascinating connection between complexity
and post-modernism [2]. Complex systems consist of a large, interact-
ing number of actors. Interactions are dynamic (they change with
time), fairly rich (actors typically inuence quite a few others), mostly

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

250 M. Franceschet

short-range (information or whatever else might circulate through

relationships is received and spread primarily from immediate neigh-
bors), nonlinear (small causes can have large effects and vice versa),
and nonhierarchical (there are feedback loops in relationships).
Actors are self-organizing (there exists no central authority) and igno-
rant of the behavior of the system as a whole (they have local informa-
tion only). Furthermore, the system is open (interacting with the envi-
ronment), operates under conditions far from equilibrium (it is kept
alive by a constant ow of information), and has a history (the past is
co-responsible for the present behavior). Complex systems are
widespread in nature, society, information, and technology; a few ex-
amples include: the human brain, the metabolic system, natural lan-
guage, ecosystems and the biosphere, the academic publication
system, the economic system, the internet, power grids, linked infor-
mation systems like the web and Wikipedia, and online social net-
working services such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and ResearchGate.
The difculty with complex systems is that they are complex, not
merely complicated. The very peculiarity of a complex system lies in
the relationships among its parts. Such an inseparable coupling makes
the system more than the mere juxtaposition of its parts; hence, the
system as a whole cannot be fully understood by simply analyzing its
components. Consider the web, for instance. The content of a web
page tells us only half of the story: it is useful to dene the relevance
of a page with respect to a users information need. The hyperlinks be-
tween pages complete the picture: they contain the precious informa-
tion that can be used to gauge the importance of a page with algo-
rithms such as PageRank [3]. Similarly, the scholarly papers we write
are of incommensurable value; on the other hand, bibliographic cita-
tions among them are also important for measuring their impact [4].
Reductionisman analytical method that analyzes something com-
plex by dividing it into manageable parts that can be investigated sep-
arately and then putting the parts together againis not a useful strat-
egy with complex systems. As Cilliers says: In cutting up a system,
the analytical method destroys what it seeks to understand [2]. On
the other hand, holismwhich believes that the whole is ultimately
irreducibleis a more viable approach to the understanding of com-
plex systems. Complex systems pose real problems of organized com-
plexity, as Weaver anticipated, which demands new ways of thinking.
A feasible, although incomplete, approach to the inherent complex-
ity of complex systems is network sciencethe holistic analysis of
real complex systems through the study of the network that wires
their components [5, 6]. It is worth noticing that a network is a simpli-
ed, partial model of a complex system: it captures only the structure
of relationships among actors, which is, nevertheless, the most valu-
able and tasty aspect of complex systems.

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

Complex Beauty 251

The rst tangible contribution of network science has been the col-
lection of network data: the identication, construction, storage, and
distribution of a differentiated database of possibly very large real
networks. These networks underlie complex systems present in many
different contexts, including technological networks (the internet, tele-
phone networks, power grids, transportation networks, and distribu-
tion networks), information networks (the web, academic and legal
citation networks, patent networks, peer-to-peer networks, and rec-
ommender networks), social networks (friendship and acquaintance
networks, social networks of animals, sexual contact networks, dat-
ing patterns, criminal networks, and collaborations of scientists,
movie actors, and musicians), and biological networks (metabolic net-
works, proteinprotein interaction networks, genetic regulatory net-
works, neural networks, and ecological networks).
Network scientists study methods and realize tools to analyze such
a rich repository of real graphs. Some of these methods are new (e.g.,
algorithms for community detection), others are borrowed from
graph theory, bibliometrics, sociometry, and even econometrics. Net-
work science addresses questions at three levels of granularity [7]:
node-level analysis, where methods to identify the most central nodes
of the network are investigated; group-level analysis, which involves
techniques for nding cohesive groups of nodes in the network; and
network-level analysis, which focuses on topological properties of net-
works as a whole, as well as on theoretical models generating empiri-
cal networks with certain properties.
In the following, I will argue that complex systems, besides being
an established tool to investigate reality, are extremely alluring pro-
cesses generating beautiful networks. As an unstable, soft blend of or-
der and disorder, wildly distributed in technology, information, soci-
ety, and nature, complex systems provide a varicolored dataset for the
artful information visualizer, a precious implement for the generative
artist, and a new source of inspiration for the traditional artist.

2. The Beauty of Complex Systems

There exists a general consensus in aestheticsthe philosophical

study of art, beauty, and tastethat beauty lies at the intersection of
order and disorder. Perfect order is tedious and therefore not attrac-
tive. Chaos is incomprehensible to the human brain and therefore is
equally unappetizing. When we depart from order without resulting
in complete chaos, maintaining an unstable balance between regular-
ity and mess, often we get a result that surprises and thrills, so that
we may dene it as beautiful. Consider a performance of contempo-
rary dance. Each dancer involved typically follows specic choreogra-

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

252 M. Franceschet

phy, determined a priori by the choreographer. On the other hand,

each dancer interprets the choreography according to their inclina-
tions, history, and mood. Not infrequently, there is also room for im-
provisation. These elementsinterpretation and improvisationadd
a disorderly contribution to the choreographed, pre-given movements.
It follows that every staging is the same but also subtly different from
the others; it is partially unpredictable.
Architect Richard Padovan describes order and complexity as twin
poles of the same phenomenon. Neither can exist without the other
order needs complexity to become manifest; complexity needs order
to become intelligibleand aesthetic value is a measure of both. He
beautifully expresses this concept with the following words: Delight
lies somewhere between boredom and confusion. If monotony makes
it difcult to attend, a surfeit of novelty will overload the system and
cause us to give up; we are not tempted to analyze the crazy pave-
ment [8].
I argue that complex systems live at the intersection of order and
disorder. If we look at complex systems at the micro level of actors,
they appear relatively simple and regular. Individual actors operate in
a rather elementary way, typically following few plain rules, paying
attention to the behavior of their local neighbors only. Such a local
simplicity, multiplied by the sheer number of actors that compose the
system, interacting through the convoluted structure of relationships
among them, produces an unexpected, yet organized, global complex-
ity. A simple rule set at a low level creates organized complexity at a
higher level. A couple of examples follow. In a bird ock, according
to the simplest model [9], each individual bird maneuvers based on
the positions and velocities of its nearby ock mates following three
simple steering behaviors: separation (steer to avoid crowding local
ock mates), alignment (steer toward the average heading of local
ock mates), and cohesion (steer to move toward the average position
of local ock mates). The global, resulting picture is the mesmerizing
patterns of abstract beauty that we all have seen at least once in the
sky. Similar behavior has been studied for insects (swarming),
quadrupeds (herding), shes (schooling), and also for humans and
robots in certain situations. A second example is Twitter. Each user
acts plainly: they tweet tiny messages, entirely self-interested or inu-
enced by a small set of users they follow. But such micro posts, when
multiplied by the mass of users and channeled through the underlying
labyrinthine network of followers, shape themselves into cultural
shifts, global opinions, and even revolutions. The crucial role of the in-
ternet and especially social networking services (Twitter in particular)
during the uprisings of the Arab Spring has been largely acknowl-
edged. These media were used by insurgents to break isolation from
the external world as well as to organize the internal revolution.

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

Complex Beauty 253

Stephen Wolfram dedicated a monumental manuscript to the inves-

tigation of the counterintuitive phenomenon in which simple abstract
rules produce complex outcomes: Even a program that may have ex-
tremely simple rules will often be able to generate pictures that have
striking aesthetic qualitiessometimes reminiscent of nature, but of-
ten unlike anything ever seen before [10]. Our normal intuition fails,
since when building things (including programs) normally we start
from whatever behavior we want to get, then try to design a system
that will produce it. Yet to do this reliably, we have to restrict our-
selves to systems whose behavior we can readily understand and pre-
dictfor unless we can foresee how a system will behave, we cannot
be sure that the system will do what we want [10]. But unlike engi-
neering, nature, as well as art, operates under no such constraint.
The phenomenon of complex systems whereby simple conduct at
the level of actors creates novel and coherent structures at a higher
level is called emergence [11]. Economist Jeffrey Goldstein provided a
current denition of emergent phenomena, or emergents, in terms of
the following properties [12]: (i) radical novelty: emergents are not
predictable from, deducible from, or reducible to the micro-level com-
ponents; (ii) coherence: emergents appear as integrated, unitary
wholes that tend to maintain some sense of identity over time, in spite
of the separation of the micro-level components; (iii) macro level: the
locus of emergent phenomena occurs at a global or macro level, in
contrast to the micro-level locus of their components; (iv) dynamical:
emergent phenomena are not pre-given wholes but arise as a complex
system evolves over time; and (v) ostensive: emergents are recognized
by showing themselves. Because of the nature of complex systems,
each ostensive showing of emergent phenomena will be different to
some degree from previous ones.
These characteristics make emergence the ideal tool for the genera-
tive artist [13]. Generative art is an art practice where the artist pro-
grams a system, which is set into motion with some degree of auton-
omy, contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art [14, 15].
A dening feature of generative artwork is unpredictability: the gener-
ative artist cedes part of the control to the autonomous system in
order to obtain an outcome that arouses surprise and emotion
(radical novelty) and that shows itself different at every staging
(ostensive). A consequence of unpredictability is computational irre-
ducibility: there is no way to predict how the system will behave ex-
cept by going through all of its computation [10]. The generative art-
work arises as a unitary whole as the autonomous system evolves in
time (dynamical coherence), and the nal artwork is at a higher granu-
larity level with respect to the low-level logic of the program and the
mechanics of the system (macro level). Renowned exponents of the
generative art movement include, to cite a few: Keith Peters, Jared

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

254 M. Franceschet

Tarbell, Robert Hodgin, Marius Watz, Casey Reas, Paul Prudence,

and Matt Pearson. To pick just one instance, Figure 1 shows Mag-
netic Ink, by Robert Hodgin [16].
But the contribution of complex systems to beauty and art over-
whelms the generative art movement. Complex systems are ubiqui-
tous; in particular, their most immediate and tangible manifestations,
complex networks, are the focus of a philosophical, cultural, and artis-
tic change of our highly interrelated and interdependent postmodern
society. Rhizomatic structures offer a new model for knowledge and
society aiming at acknowledging decentralization, autonomy, exibil-
ity, creativity, diversity, collaboration, altruism, and ultimately,
democracy [1719]. Networks match and sustain the proliferation of
information typical of the postmodern condition, the coexistence of a
multiplicity of heterogeneous discourses, instead of a simple, central
discourse that unies all forms of knowledge: Those who have a nos-
talgia for a unifying metanarrativea dream central to the history of
Western metaphysicsexperience the postmodern condition as frag-
mented, full of anarchy and therefore ultimately meaningless. It leaves
them with a feeling of vertigo. On the other hand, those who embrace
postmodernism nd it challenging, exciting, and full of uncharted
spaces. It lls them with a sense of adventure [2, 20].

Figure 1. Magnetic Ink by Robert Hodgin. The artist describes his artwork as
follows: Magnetic Ink began as a tangent from the ocking studies I was
working on at the time. The thinking was simple. What if the ocking birds
rained down a ne mist of ink onto a sheet of virtual paper. At the same time,
they have ribbons that hang from their feet and if they y low enough, the rib-
bon will drag on the paper and erase the ink [16].

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

Complex Beauty 255

Such a perspective shift could not go unnoticed by the artist; a rec-

ognized function of art is to sense the times we are living in and inter-
pret them as a form of beauty, so that they can nurture our souls and
caress our psychological frailties [21]. Philosophers Gilles Deleuze
and Flix Guattari early envisaged the concept of network as artwork,
and more generally as a cultural meme [17]: The rhizome () can be
torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an indi-
vidual, group, or social formation. It can be drawn on a wall, con-
ceived of as a work of art, constructed as a political action or as a
meditation. Manuel Lima, a creative mind and leading voice in infor-
mation visualization, observes that complex networks are not just
omnipresent, they are also intriguing, stimulating, and extremely allur-
ing structures. Networks are not just the center of a scientic revolu-
tion; they are also contributing to a considerable shift in our concep-
tion of society, culture, and art, expressing a new sense of beauty
[18]. Lima is the founder of VisualComplexity.coma unied re-
source space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex net-
works. It showcases hundreds of beautifully visualized real complex
networks, most of which are denitely artworks of reality. Two ab-
sorbing examples are Bible Cross-References, by Chris Harrison, de-
picted in Figure 2, and ComplexCity Paris, by Lee Jang Sub, illus-
trated in Figure 3.

Figure 2. Bible Cross-References by Chris Harrison in collaboration with

Lutheran pastor Christoph Rmhild. This is how Harrison describes his artful
visualization: The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the
chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray.
The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of
the 63 779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arcthe
color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rain-
bow-like effect [22].

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

256 M. Franceschet

Figure 3. ComplexCity Paris by Lee Jang Sub. The artist describes the project
as follows: This project is an exploration to nd a concealed aesthetic by us-
ing the pattern formed by the roads of the city which have been growing and
evolving randomly through time, thus composing the complex conguration
we experience today. I perceive the citys patterns as living creatures that I re-
compose to form an urban image [23].

In his captivating book Visual Complexity [18], moreover, Lima in-

troduces the term networkism to identify a small but growing artistic
trend, characterized by the portrayal of gurative graph structures of
network topologies revealing convoluted patterns of nodes and links.
Unlike network visualizations, which are based on a real dataset, the
works produced by these artists, mainly paintings and sculptures, are
ctitious. The inuence of networkism is clearly visible in the works

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

Complex Beauty 257

of Sharon Molloy, Emma McNally, Janice Caswell, Tomas Saraceno,

Chiharu Shiota, Dalibor Nikolic, Akiko Ikeuchi, Ranjani Shettar, and
Monika Grzymala, to cite a few, where imaginary landscapes of inter-
connected entities are the prevailing theme. This is how Sharon Mol-
loy describes her work [18]:
My quest is to reveal how everything is interconnected. From
the atom to the cell, to the body and beyond into society and the
cosmos, there are underlying processes, structures and rhythms
that are mirrored all around and permeate reality. () Ulti-
mately I am trying to present a view of reality that reects our
changing times. This work embraces the multiple, the network,
the paradoxical and the idea that even the smallest gesture or
event has signicance, and the power to change everything.
See networkism.org for a digital portrayal of the artworks of these
artists. An installation by Chiharu Shiota is pictured in Figure 4.

Figure 4. In Silence, 2011, by Chiharu Shiota (photograph by Sunhi Mang).

Material: Burnt grand piano, black wool. The artwork, featuring an aban-
doned, charred piano concert concealed beneath a complex network of inter-
woven yarn, is one of the best-known installations of the artist [24].

3. Coda

I have proposed the idea of the artification of science and have exem-
plied the concept with the aid of complex systems and networks.
The benets of a cross-pollination between science and art are several

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

258 M. Franceschet

and include:
1. New interesting problems arise, for instance, what is a suitable measure
of complexity in aesthetics? Traditional complexity and information
measures adopted in information theory, like Kolmogorov complexity
and Shannon entropy do not work well in aesthetics, since they equate
randomness with maximal complexity and maximal information, while
aesthetics considers randomness as interesting as boredom.
2. Nonlinear approaches to the familiar increase creativity and originality,
two indispensable aspects of good research.
3. Research tastes more interdisciplinary. In policy discourse, interdisci-
plinarity is often perceived as a mark of good researchmore success-
ful in achieving breakthroughs and relevant outcomes.
4. Teaching has a more stimulating avor and attracts more interested stu-
dents. Students typically have a less specialized mind that is naturally in-
clined to appreciate interdisciplinary arguments.

References

[1] W. Weaver, Science and Complexity, American Scientist, 36, 1948

pp. 536544.
[2] P. Cilliers, Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex
Systems, New York: Routledge, 1998.
[3] M. Franceschet, PageRank: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, Com-
munications of the ACM, 54(6), 2011 pp. 92101.
doi:10.1145/1953122.1953146.
[4] J. D. West, T. C. Bergstrom, and C. T. Bergstrom, The Eigenfactor Met-
rics: A Network Approach to Assessing Scholarly Journals, College
and Research Libraries, 71(3), 2010 pp. 236244.
doi:10.5860/0710236.
[5] A.-L. Barabsi, Linked: The New Science of Networks, Cambridge,
MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002.
[6] M. E. J. Newman, Networks: An Introduction, New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2010.
[7] U. Brandes and T. Erlebach, eds., Network Analysis: Methodological
Foundations, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2005.
[8] R. Padovan, Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture, New York:
Taylor & Francis, 1999.
[9] C. W. Reynolds. Flocks, Herds and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral
Model, ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics, 21(4), 1987 pp. 2534.
doi:10.1145/37401.37406.
[10] S. Wolfram. A New Kind of Science, Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media,
Inc., 2002.

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.

Complex Beauty 259

[11] J. H. Holland, Emergence: From Chaos to Order, Reading, MA: Addi-

son-Wesley, 1998.
[12] J. Goldstein, Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues, Emer-
gence, 1(1), 1999 pp. 4972. doi:10.1207/s15327000em0101_4.
[13] M. Pearson, Generative Art, Shelter Island, NY: Manning Publications
Co., 2011.
[14] P. Galanter, What Is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context
for Art Theory, in 6th Generative Art Conference, (GA2003), Milan,
Italy, 2003. http://www.generativeart.com.
[15] H. Bohnacker, B. Gross, J. Laub, and C. Lazzeroni, Generative Design:
Visualize, Program, and Create with Processing, New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2012.
[16] R. Hodgin. Magnetic Ink. (Jul 2, 2015)
http://roberthodgin.com/magnetic-ink.
[17] G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, trans.), Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press, 1987.
[18] M. Lima, Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, New
York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
[19] E. Lieberman, C. Hauert, and M. A. Nowak, Evolutionary Dynamics
on Graphs, Nature, 433(7023), 2005 pp. 312316.
doi:10.1038/nature03204.
[20] J. F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
(G. Bennington and B. Massumi, trans.), Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1984.
[21] A. de Botton and J. Armstrong, Art as Therapy, London: Phaidon Press
Limited, 2013.
[22] C. Harrison. Bible Cross-References. (Jul 2, 2015)
http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Visualizations/BibleViz.
[23] L. J. Sub. Recent Work. (Jul 2, 2015) http://www.leejangsub.com.

[24] C. Shiota. Chiharu Shiota. (Jul 2, 2015)

http://www.chiharu-shiota.com/en.

Complex Systems, 24 2015 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.